“We’ve done ye no harm, little one. A blessing?” She came from the house then, with him on her heels, and bowed her head. I was at least a foot taller than either of them. The man looked upon me with fear but the woman was willing to share her dread with hopes of magic.
I imagined if I said nothing, they would think that I cursed them instead. I spoke a phrase of the mass: “Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritus Sancto; sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum, amen.” I stopped myself making the sign of the cross, fearing that would give away the origin of the words.
The man waved his hand, one finger extended, toward the road. “Go on, now. Town’s that way. Eleven miles. Ye will find the Great Road. We done ye no harm, remember that. No elf ever suffered at our hands, tha’.”
The road wound through places almost too narrow for a horse-drawn rig, but it was not eleven miles to the town. Indeed, within half a mile I came upon a house and then another, their lands trimmed and perfect as the gardens at St. Ursula’s. A woman waved to me from behind a split-wood fence. I returned the salute, then she called to me, “Are you travelin’, then?”
“Yes, to Boston to find a ship,” I said.
“Alone?”
“Aye, Mistress. Have I far to travel?”
“Boston? I think they say it may be three days by coach, two on horseback, and one on foot.” She smiled. I supposed it was to be a riddle, but it was not clear. She continued. “Oh, don’t look so sad. There’s a town closer. Cambridge Farms, it was, in my father’s day. Now ’tis called Laxton. The Boston road is not a road to travel alone, Miss.”
Laxton? At her last word, the realization struck me that with Patience married in a way, I was now The Miss Talbot. “I am Miss Talbot, of Two Crowns Plantation.”
“Nary heard o’ that one.”
“In Jamaica.”
“How do you come here, then?”
“Captive.” I looked at her house. There was no cross or crucifix over the door, but another horseshoe bent into an oval. “Sold to a Catholic convent in the north, and escaped now. I hope to return home.”
A broad grin spread upon her face, lighting her eyes with warmth. “Are you hungry, Miss Talbot, as hungry as you are brave?”
“I am, good lady.”
She cocked her head and laughed, as embarrassed as a child being praised. “Oh, come inside, dearie. I am no fine ladyship but I have on some bread and fine cheese. We’ll make you a meal.”
I sighed and smiled. “How kind of you, Mistress.”
This time she giggled. “Come around to the door, then, with you.” She met me from the inside, then, and welcomed me into a dear cottage so tidy and well appointed, though the furnishings rough, that it seemed a dollhouse. It smelled of what we—the French—called the “breath of heaven,” fresh bread just from the oven. In the time it took the lady to bring bread and fresh butter to the table, memories of my time at St. Ursula rolled over me like a wave, and my hands trembled.
“Would you have cider?” she asked as she poured it into a gourd and handed it across the table.
“Well and aye,” I said, and blushed, embarrassed at my words, for Ma’s expression was so rarely on my tongue the whole of the years I had been away from English people. “The bread is delicious.”
“There, you can call me ‘Goody Carnegie.’ Here’s honey for you. Now,” she said, “when you have broken your fast, tell us how you came to be here.”
In as few sentences as I could manage, I did so, leaving out that Patience had left me and run away with the Indians. I told her I had come with strangers who had left me on the road to go to their homeland. Since it was another direction and I wished to get to the closest seaport, they had sent me on my way.
“And where was their home? Far from this town? For I would know everyone.”
I nearly spoke the words in French, and caught myself at the last second. “They were not given to talking of it, and our flight was hurried. West, I think.”
“Well, cheers that you got away! And would you not consider staying by here? There are those who might take you in. Laxton or Lexington, how e’er you call it, ’tis a nice town.”
“Oh, I could not impose, Mistress. I only wish to find a ship on which to go home.” I feared that by “taking me in” she meant as a servant or indenturing me against my will to pay for my upkeep. I pressed my hand under the table against my thigh where Ma’s casket lay. “I have a small sum laid by. I would stay at an inn, if such were available. Of course, I should rather secure a coach to the seaport.”